Coming to ,S7. Paul, we have not only the fact, apparent to every reader, that he set Christs death in tlie forefront of all his teaching, but his testimony that in doing so he was following the example of the earlier Apostles and the primitive Church. 'I delivered unto you first of all,' he writes, ' that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scrip- tures' (1 Co 13'). And St. Paul's jireoccupation with the death of Clirist was not a passing phase of his religious experience. AVe find him speaking of it in tlie first and last chapters of his earliest Epistle (1 Th 1" S"). In the great Epistles of his middle period it is his dominating thought. The Ep. to the Galatians is a passionate apologia for the gospel which he preached (l™-), a gospel whose substance he sums up in the words 'Jesus Christ . . . crucified' (3^), and with regard to which he exclaims, ' God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ ' (6'^). In 1 Cor. he declares that when he came to Corinth he determined not to know anything there .save Jesus Clirist and Him crucified (2^) ; and further assures his converts, in a passage already refened to, that in proclaiming Christ's death ' first of all ' he was only maintaining the Christian tradition as he had received it (15^). In this same Epistle he hands on (11-^) the special tradition of the institution of the Lord's Supper, refers to that rite as the central purpose for which the members of the Church c.ime together (cf. v." with v.-""), and says that in the observance of this great solemnity of the Chris- tian faith we ' proclaim the Lord's death till he come' (v.°^). 2 Cor., besides many other refer- ences, contains the great classical pa.s.sage in which Clirist's death is set forth as the convincing proof of His love and the basis of the ministry of re- conciliation {o^*"-). In Romans the expressions ' Christ died ' and ' his death ' occur more fre- quently than in all tlie rest of St. Paul's Epistles put together. ' Christ died for the ungodly,' we read (o*") ; ' while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us' (v.*) ; ' he died unto sins once' (6'") ; 'it is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather that was raised from the dead ' (8**). Similarly, the Apostle writes, ' "We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son' (5'"); 'we were baptized into his death' . . . ' buried with him . . . into death,' ' united with him by the likeness of his death ' (6'' ■*• °). And when we pass to the last grou]) of the Pauline writing.s, although we find that in two of tliem, Colossians and Ephesians, the writer has a larger
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outlook than before, and thinks of Christ's work now as having a cosmic and not merely a human 'significance (Col I''"''-, Eph li»-=»if'), he still exalts. Christ's death as the very core of the work He did. It is ' the firstborn from the dead' (Col I'*) who is 'the firstborn of every creature' (v.'=). 'He is before all things, and "by him all things consist ' (v."); but it is 'through death' (v.--), 'through his blood' (v."), 'through the blood of his cross' (v.-"), that He brings peace and redemption and reconciliation (cf., further, Eph 1'"- =»"■■ with S'^- "* 52- -%
Very different views have been taken of the relation in the mind of the author of Hcbreics between the incarnation and the death of Christ. But in any case it is agreed that it is upon the latter subject that the writer's attention is especi- ally fastened. It is in wiiat lie has to say about the death of Christ and its purpose that we find the real message of the wurk. It is to ehicidate and illustrate tills great thi'in' ili:.! ili.' iiUhor draws so freelj upon his intinu! ■ j-i;:;,! i m .mci; with the sacrificial rites and iiiini ; : ; i ■ ih.xid of the OT Church (P 2»- " 7-' 'J'- '■ ' ' l< ' ■ ' ■ -' 1-2-- =•■ 13'-).
With regard to the Apocaf i/p.ir , it is noteworthy that at the very beginning of the book Jesus Christ is introduced to us as ' the firstborn of the dead,' and that the ascription immediately follows, ' Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood' (P). And very significant surely is the constant recurrence, througliout the book, of the figure of the Lamb, a figure the meaning of which is made clear when the Lamb is described as ' the Lamb that was slain,' the Lamb by whose blood men of every nation liave been ' purchased unto God' (see esp. g''- "■ '- 7'^ 12"). 1 .Jn. is a treatise not on the death of Christ but on the ' word of life' {V). Jesus is conceived of as tlie manifested life (1-), and union with Him tlirougli faith as the source of eternal life to men (5""'-'). And yet tlie condition of our transition from deatli to life is the fact that Christ 'laid down his life for us' (3'''- "''), and a Christian life which can be descrilied as a 'walk in the light' is secured only by the fact that Jesus Christ the righteous is ' the propitiatiun for our sins,' and that His blood ' cleanseth us from all sin' (1' 2'--).